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British Raj Famines

Hindu Nationalism

“It (is) not easy ... to draw a line between Hindu nationalism and true nationalism. The two overlap as India is the only home of Hindus and they form a majority there.” — J. Nehru in Glimpses of World History

Those who permit slaying of animals; those who bring animals for slaughter; those who slaughter; those who sell meat; those who purchase meat; those who prepare dishes out of meat; those who serve that meat and those who eat it are all murderers. — Manusmriti

Homos & Hinduism

National Shame!

Word of God?

When I think of all the harm the Bible has done, I despair of ever writing anything to equal it.” — Oscar Wilde

"Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world." — Voltaire

"Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned, [and molested]: yet we have not advanced one inch towards humanity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support error and roguery all over the earth." — Thomas Jefferson

Jesus in India?

Jesus luvs lil boys

St Xavier’s Crimes

We must be careful of arguments presented by Right wing and Left wing thinkers, who are both outliers in all cultures, but tend to dominate discourse and take away nuance. … These two wings feed off each other as they spend all their time arguing against each other’s ideas, rather than appreciating that history is neither simple nor linear. — Dr Devdutt Pattanaik

The people of this land were called Hindu by ancient Persians, and Indians by ancient Greeks, as they lived in the land across the river Sindhu known as Hind in Persia and India in Greece. The British called this subcontinent the Indian subcontinent, and the Americans call it South Asia. In the Puranas, this land is called Jambudvipa, the land of the jambul (Indian blackberry) or jambu (rose apple) tree. Today, this land includes the nation-states of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

India has become a political term, while Indic is a cultural term. Hindu, once a geographical term, has now become a religious term. Depending on how good a lawyer you are, you can argue that Hinduism is a religion created by the British in the 19th century, or a way of looking at the world that emerged 5,000 years ago.

In America, this question of whether yoga is Hindu has been raised because of politics and economics. For some Hindus argue that the term has been appropriated by the Americans, and made commercial, hence corrupt, stripped of its spiritual significance. Others argue that it never belonged to Hindus and so the question of appropriation does not arise. Essentially, it has become a territorial fight about is it “yours” or is it “mine”, the very mental knots that yoga seeks to unravel.

But there is no doubt that the idea originated in this part of the world, nurtured by many people, over hundreds of years. The form that we know it in today is the result of the re-packaging that yoga saw in the early 20th century, done in India, by Hindus.

The Indus Valley seals show a man seated in a posture that yoga identifies as bhadrasana, or the throne position. Was this yoga? We can speculate either way.

The Vedic traditions, that are 4,000 years old refer to the word yoga in the sense of yoking or harnessing an ox to a cart. Even today, yoga or its colloquial form “jog” is used to indicate alignment of various forces, for example, the planetary forces in astrology. One can argue that the word “jugaad” comes from “jogi” or the resourceful man who can create “jog” where none existed before. So the word has Vedic roots.

The Shramana, or hermit, traditions, that are 3000 years old, brought forth many ideas that were eventually seen as yogic, such as psychological discipline—focussing (dhyan) and building awareness or perspective (dharana), or withdrawing (pratyahara), and a host of breathing exercises (pranayama) to regulate the mind and physical contortions (asana), such as standing on one foot, or holding arms aloft, favoured by hermits known as tapasvins, who do tapasya, or the churning of the spiritual fire known as tapa, which grants humans supernatural physical and psychological powers (siddhi) that enables them to control nature. So the practices associated with yoga today do have roots in the Shramana tradition. Buddhism and Jainism are Shramana traditions.

In the Puranic age, that is 2000 years old, Vedic rituals and eventually Shramana traditions, were overshadowed by the stories of God, manifesting as Shiva, Vishnu and Devi. Shiva became the God who reveals Yoga to his student Patanjali, a serpent, who, in turn, shares it with the world. Vishnu also shares it, as Krishna to Arjuna, and Ram to Hanuman. Here, we start seeing a division. Some focus more on the psychological aspect, ideas such as union of the individual soul (jiva-atma) with the cosmic soul (para-atma) that is God, which is known as samadhi. Others focus on the physical aspects, especially magical powers related to celibacy, which is known as siddhi.

The samadhi focus is seen as Vedic and the siddhi focus as Tantrik, though such divisions are arbitrary. The focus varies in various texts. In Bhagavad Gita, which is part of the Mahabharata, for example, there is a reference to the psychological aspect of yoga, and to pranayama, but not to asanas, while in Patanjali’s yoga sutra, the reference to asanas is minimal, it does lend a clear definition of yoga (removal of mental twists and turns), and feels no obligation to be overly theistic, except functionally.

In the Nath traditions, that started becoming increasingly popular 1,000 years ago, there are clear references to the physical aspect of yoga: various yogic postures and breathing exercises. These are used by ash-smeared mendicants who revere Matsyendranath and Gorakhnath. The more radical members of this school of thought are the naked ascetics that fascinate the West, and satisfy their craving for the exotic.

Since the 19th century, during the British rule, to counter the European discourse, and following exposure to European style gymnastics, under the patronage of Wodeyar kings of Mysore, local gurus of traditional physical culture such as Krishnamacharya conceptualised and organised yoga as we know it today, and it spread across India and around the world through teachers such as Iyengar and Sivananda. There have been translations and commentaries on ancient and medieval yoga texts such as Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra by scholars and academicians, including Vivekananda.

Today, the idea and practice of yoga has spread widely across the world, alarming on one the hand Christian and Muslim isolationists and supremacists (who see this as covert Hindu missionary activity) and Hindu isolationists and supremacists (who fear the appropriation of their faith and culture). Then there are the atheists and secularists, also seeking supremacy, who see red every time the word tradition or religion is mentioned.

We must be careful of arguments presented by Right wing and Left wing thinkers, who are both outliers in all cultures, but tend to dominate discourse and take away nuance. The Right wing, especially the Hindu supremacists among them, tend to believe that yoga emerged in its perfect pristine form within Hinduism somewhere in the distant past, even before the Indus Valley Civilisation. The Left wing has contempt for all things ancient, religious or tradiitonal. These two wings feed off each other as they spend all their time arguing against each other’s ideas, rather than appreciating that history is neither simple nor linear.

To deny that yoga has no special relationship with India, with Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, is like saying America has nothing to do with Native Americans (except being built on their corpses). At the same time, to accuse the West of stealing yoga is unfair, and ideas do transform following cultural exchange. The idea of “purity” that many religious and academic folk cling to is dangerous as it ultimately ends up establishing “untouchability”. – Daily-O, 14 September 2016

3 Responses

Fully agree with Vijaya . He has been quite supportive of the likes of Wendy Doniger and appears to be getting cosy with the Litfest group. Elbowing himself to find a place in the sun. Now where does that fit ? Some exposure to the Puranas, Rajiv Malhotra, David Frawley and German Indologists of the past century will make him an authority in the real sense in years to come.

Interesting article. However, it is not clear what the author intends by saying that there is a parallel between the links between Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism and Yoga and the American link with the native Americans.

Also, the connection between Patanjali Yoga and Vedic Yoga, including themes in the 4 Vedas and especially Upanishadic Yoga would indicate the ancient ancestry of Yoga.

This is brought out in detail in Dr. David Frawley’s book Vedic Yoga (2014).

Logos Not Khristos

The world has produced three great impostors: Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. — Frederick II of Sicily

Christians must acknowledge the historical fact that from Bethlehem to Madras, most of their sacred sites are booty won in campaigns of fraud and destruction. — Koenraad Elst

Every formula of every religion has in this age of reason, to submit to the acid test of reason and universal justice if it is to ask for universal assent. — M. K. Gandhi

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. — Cicero

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. — M. K. Gandhi

Ramanasramam’s Christian Inmates

Tolerance

If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — Karl Popper